Born in Exile Part 62

'I am not so foolish, as to think it possible,' said Peak, half turning away.

'But that is no reason,' she pursued, 'why we should become strangers.

You are still so young a man; life must be so full of possibilities for you. This year has been wasted, but when you leave Exeter'----

An impatient movement of G.o.dwin's checked her.

'You are going to encourage me to begin the struggle once more,' he said, bitterly. 'Where? How? It is so easy to talk of "possibilities".'

'You are not without friends--I mean friends whose sympathy is of real value to you.'

Saying this, she looked keenly at him.

'Friends,' he replied, 'who perhaps at this moment are laughing over my disgrace.'

'How do they know of--what has happened?'

'How did your brother get his information? I didn't care to ask him.--No, I don't even wish you to say anything about that.'

'But surely there is no reason for keeping it secret. Why may I not speak freely? Buckland told me that he had heard you spoken of at the house of people named Moxey.'

She endeavoured to understand the smile which rose to his lips. 'Now it is clear to me,' he said. 'Yes, I suppose that was inevitable, sooner or later.'

'You knew that he had become acquainted with the Moxeys?'

Her tone was more reserved than hitherto.

'Yes, I knew he had. He met Miss Moxey by chance at Budleigh Salterton, and I happened to be there--at the Moorhouses'--on the same day.'

Sidwell glanced at him inquiringly, and waited for something more.

'I saw Miss Moxey in private,' he added, speaking more quickly, 'and asked her to keep my secret. I ought to be ashamed to tell you this, but it is better you should know how far my humiliation has gone.'

He saw that she was moved with strong feeling. The low tone in which she answered had peculiar significance.

'Did you speak of me to Miss Moxey?'

'I must forgive you for asking that,' Peak replied, coldly. 'It may well seem to you that I have neither honour nor delicacy left.'

There had come a flush on her cheeks. For some moments she was absorbed in thought.

'It seems strange to you,' he continued at length, 'that I could ask Miss Moxey to share such a secret. But you must understand on what terms we were--she and I. We have known each other for several years.

She has a man's mind, and I have always thought of her in much the same way as of my male companions.--Your brother has told you about her, perhaps?'

'I have met her in London.'

'Then that will make my explanation easier,' said G.o.dwin, disregarding the anxious questions that at once suggested themselves to him. 'Well, I misled her, or tried to do so. I allowed her to suppose that I was sincere in my new undertakings, and that I didn't wish--Oh!' he exclaimed, suddenly breaking off, 'Why need I go any further in confession? It must be as miserable for you to hear as for me to speak.

Let us make an end of it. I can't understand how I have escaped detection so long.'

Remembering every detail of Buckland's story, Sidwell felt that she had possibly been unjust in representing the Moxeys as her brother's authority; in strictness, she ought to mention that a friend of theirs was the actual source of information. But she could not pursue the subject; like G.o.dwin, she wished to put it out of her mind. What question could there be of honour or dishonour in the case of a person such as Miss Moxey, who had consented to be party to a shameful deceit?

Strangely, it was a relief to her to have heard this. The moral repugnance which threatened to estrange her from G.o.dwin, was now directed in another quarter; unduly restrained by love, it found scope under the guidance of jealousy.

'You have been trying to adapt yourself,' she said, 'to a world for which you are by nature unfitted. Your place is in the new order; by turning back to the old, you condemned yourself to a wasted life. Since we have been in London, I have come to understand better the great difference between modern intellectual life and that which we lead in these far-away corners. You must go out among your equals, go and take your part with men who are working for the future.'

Peak rose with a gesture of pa.s.sionate impatience.

'What is it to me, new world or old? My world is where _you_ are. I have no life of my own; I think only of you, live only by you.'

'If I could help you!' she replied, with emotion. 'What can I do--but be your friend at a distance? Everything else has become impossible.'

'Impossible for the present--for a long time to come. But is there no hope for me?'

She pressed her hands together, and stood before him unable to answer.

'Remember,' he continued, 'that you are almost as much changed in my eyes as I in yours. I did not imagine that you had moved so far towards freedom of mind. If my love for you was profound and absorbing, think what it must now have become! Yours has suffered by my disgrace, but is there no hope of its reviving--if I live worthily--if I----?'

His voice failed.

'I have said that we can't be strangers,' Sidwell murmured brokenly.

'Wherever you go, I must hear of you.'

'Everyone about you will detest my name. You will soon wish to forget my existence.'

'If I know myself, never!--Oh, try to find your true work! You have such abilities, powers so much greater than those of ordinary men. You will always be the same to me, and if ever circ.u.mstances'----

'You would have to give up so much, Sidwell. And there is little chance of my ever being well-to-do; poverty will always stand between us, if nothing else.'

'It must be so long before we can think of that.'

'But can I ever see you?--No, I won't ask that. Who knows? I may have to go too far away. But I _may_ write to you--after a time?'

'I shall live in the hope of good news from you,' she replied, trying to smile and to speak cheerfully. 'This will always be my home. Nothing will be changed.'

'Then you don't think of me as irredeemably base?'

'If I thought you base,' Sidwell answered, in a low voice, 'I should not now be speaking with you. It is because I feel and know that you have erred only--that is what makes it impossible for me to think of your fault as outweighing the good in your nature.'

'The good? I wonder how you understand that. What is there _good_ in me? You don't mean mere intellect?'

He waited anxiously for what she would say. A necessity for speaking out his inmost thoughts had arisen with the emotion, scarcely to be called hope, excited by Sidwell's magnanimity. Now, or never, he must stand before this woman as his very self, and be convinced that she loved him for his own sake.

'No, I don't mean intellect,' she replied, with hesitation.

'What then? Tell me of one quality in me strong enough to justify a woman's love.'

Sidwell dropped her eyes in confusion.

'I can't a.n.a.lyse your character--I only know'----

She became silent.